


breathing slow (i've known this dream for a long time)

by fulmentus



Series: did we ever really talk? (i don't know) [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: (par for the course), Angst, F/F, Gen, Minor Santana/Dani, and company - Freeform, exploring santana through the back half of s4 up to 5.12/13, mentions of grief/mourning, tweaked canon just a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28377384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fulmentus/pseuds/fulmentus
Summary: (Sometimes, she wonders if Brittany still dreams of her too.)
Relationships: Santana Lopez/Brittany S. Pierce
Series: did we ever really talk? (i don't know) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2081046
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	breathing slow (i've known this dream for a long time)

Santana trips over the threshold and stumbles into the Bushwick loft, pretending that this is everything she wanted.

(Not what she left behind.

Not the finality of Brittany’s lips pressed against hers, steady but wavering enough – or maybe that was her – just enough for her to _know_.

_You’re my best friend._

It’s not what she wanted to say, not even close. But it was all she could force out between her tightening throat and burning eyes because oh, she didn’t want to cry. Not in front of Brittany, not when she couldn’t fall into her and breathe in the same comfort that has carried her through all the years leading up to here.)

( _I will always love you the most._ )

(She didn’t tell Brittany that she’s the only one she’ll ever love.)

—

It’s not what she wanted. Not at all.

Berry and Hummel are the last people she wanted to stay in close quarters with, and sure she knows that she would have had to find some over-priced hotel to stay in or a run-down apartment complex to crash into without them, but god, they don’t know anything about her.

(She never tried to explain. Never tried to open up to either of them, because oh, what would have been the point of that?)

(She hates that a part of her ultimately knows she didn’t because neither of them are Brittany.)

Hell, she would have taken Quinn and Mercedes of these Broadway-driven divas. There is only so much one person can take of those two slinging show tunes back and forth like that’s all they’ve ever been good for.

She bites back that comment before it makes it passed her lips. They were nice enough to let her commandeer their couch after all.

But that doesn’t stop her from rolling her eyes at their wide-eyes naivete or their painfully optimistic views of the world. Because despite everything that’s been thrown at them, they still find it in themselves to be dreamers.

(Santana ignores the fact that she doesn’t know what her dreams are anymore.

Not when Brittany is miles away and no longer someone to call _hers_ anymore.)

(Not when she’s not sure if she is Brittany’s dream anymore.)

She came to New York for a reason.

And maybe she needed a push from both Brittany _and_ Quinn to get here, but she’s here. 

She’s here with Berry and Hummel in a city made of dreamers. Staring out the window to the snow-scattered cityscape, wondering, wondering, wondering. She knows it takes time to adjust, to remember how to be her own person — she was always her own person, Brittany just made her _better_ — to figure things out for herself.

She knows what she wants.

But as she observes Hummel’s pitiful attempts to get over Blaine Warbler and Berry’s conflicted feelings toward Lumps the Clown and her new hairless boy toy, Santana can’t help but think this is the opposite of what she wanted.

But she’ll have to make do somehow.

—

She tears apart the entire loft just trying to gain some semblance of control.

They eye her, wary and distrustful, like she’s still that volatile sixteen year old that would rip them apart if they so much as looked at her the wrong way.

(Some days she still feels the urge because oh, their eyes are wide and surprised when they find her curled up the end of the couch reading, wide and surprised when they catch the way her hair curls and tangles into a mess as she sleeps and she’s everything less than _perfect_ , and she needs them to stop.)

So she turns the loft inside-out, digs for secrets because god if she’s good at anything, it’s having the upper hand.

And she needs that control. She _needs_ it.

Because everything feels wrong here and nothing like what she had hoped when she left a college behind that she never particularly cared about but went to because _Brittany_ got her that scholarship. Nothing like what she had hoped when she kissed Brittany so gently goodbye in the auditorium, on that stage.

Brittany told her she deserved to shine, deserved to be where people were just as hot and awesome as she was.

Santana couldn’t tell her that she felt anything but.

—

She wakes up some days, bleary-eyed and exhausted, turning to her side expecting her eyes to meet brilliant blues, that familiar soft shade that glows in the morning sunlight.

But she doesn’t.

Months have passed, sporadic phone calls in between, since she was lucky enough to wake up and find Brittany beside her, hair golden soft and silky between her fingers.

Her heart twists in her chest, and she shoves her face into the side of the couch to keep herself from completely breaking down.

—

When they kick her out because she decided that a good confrontation is what the loft needed — because she needed to prove to them that she wasn’t wrong (that she was so much more than the girl in high school who lashed out at everyone because she was tearing herself apart inside) — she calls Brittany.

“ _They left you without a place to stay?_ ”

Brittany sounds incredibly upset, and if Santana closes her eyes, she can see the way Brittany’s brows would furrow and her eyes would darken out of anger on her behalf.

She swallows, a lump sticking in her throat, something wet and hurting. “I have a coworker I can stay with, but I just—”

She doesn’t know how to finish, she doesn’t know how to finish without sounding shaky and desperate and wanting, and oh, she wishes Brittany was here. Brittany would know what to do. Brittany always knows what to do regarding her, and god—

“I miss my best friend,” she chokes out, eyes blurring at the corners, and oh, it’s dark in this cluttered apartment, the smell of alcohol and weed permeating practically every surface, but at least there’s a couch. At least there’s a roof over her head. “I miss you, Brittany.”

And they haven’t talked much since Mr. Schue’s failed wedding, haven’t talked much since Santana found Brittany wandering aimlessly through the hallways some time past midnight, looking as lost as she felt after she slept with Quinn.

They promised they would, but life is a bitch and constantly gets in the way.

(She stumbles back into the Bushwick loft, the door clipping her ankle on her way in, and pretends that Berry and Hummel dragging sluggishly after her because of their early flight is everything she wanted.)

“ _San_ ,” Brittany’s voice turns soft, that special soft that she saves just for her (her brain betrays her as she wonders if she has a special tone for Trouts too). “ _You’ll always have me. We’re just long distance best friends right now. But—_ ” She grows more serious, and Santana sits upright, holding her breath in the darkness for whatever Brittany says next. “— _You can call me at any time of the day for anything, okay? That hasn’t changed_.”

She breathes out a weak laugh, wavering and shuddering around the sound, but it’s a laugh, and oh, when is the last time she felt it push against her lungs like this? (Did she forget how to laugh without Brittany around to remind her?)

The scrunch of her nose feels foreign, the upturn of her mouth, pushing at her cheeks, strange and bizarre and oh, she would do anything to have Brittany at her side right now. Patient and understanding and _everything_.

(She was never going to get over her.)

“Okay,” she whispers, afraid her voice will break in half if she spoke any louder. “Thank you, Britt.”

“ _Of course, San. Always_.”

And they listen to each breathe, one after the other, after the other, after the other.

“ _I miss you too._ ”

Santana closes her eyes and falls.

—

She doesn’t have any dreams. Not right now. Not anything beyond wanting to sing and perform and feel life breathe back into her lungs.

(For now she has cage dancing and bartending, and the occasional song and dance with Berry and Hummel around the loft.)

It’s been so long.

And Berry and Hummel somehow roped her into attending this ballet thing that seems like a much bigger deal than what it’s worth, but at least she gets to wear a gorgeous dress and feel like her life isn’t slowly unraveling for a night.

(She can pretend.

Like she always does.)

They say she has a voice that’s so electric is sends shivers down their spine, they tell her that there are dance closes at NYADA open to those who aren’t enrolled at the school, they tell her that she has so much talent (she blinks at them, startled, because oh, they actually _care_?) that she shouldn’t waste puttering uselessly around New York, unsure of herself.

( _A scared little girl who is too afraid to chase her dreams_ , is what Quinn called her.

 _What dreams?_ She almost screamed back then. What dreams if she couldn’t share them with Brittany?)

The skirt of her dress swishes around her ankles, and Santana breathes, and breathes, and breathes, because this is what she’s been missing. This stage, these lights, the way her vocal chords fold around the notes like they never left. Like she never lost the song somewhere along the way.

Her eyes prick with tears, and she draws a shuddering breath by the end of it.

(It reminds her of her _abuela_ , reminds her of the weekend lessons, reminds her of the way she would spin and twirl and feel like nothing could touch her.)

_And Santana, baby steps are okay._

She swallows thickly, reciting the words over and over in her head, trying to engrain it somewhere deep inside so she doesn’t forget.

(The door clips her on the way out of the loft, and Santana catches herself, exhaling harshly, and oh, things are changing.)

—

She books a train ticket back to Lima the second Trouts informs her that Brittany is acting strange.

And she doesn’t think too much of it, doesn’t think too much of haphazardly throwing some clothes in a duffel bag and hopping on the train like this is some normal occurrence (and maybe it was at the beginning, but oh, they’ve had their separate lives for months now, calls stretching thin between them despite everything).

But it doesn’t feel wrong.

It doesn’t feel wrong because the second Brittany opens the front door of her house and finds Santana standing there, she throws her arms around her neck and pulls her in close for an embrace that feels so much like an exhale.

(Feels like home.)

Santana buries her nose into her shoulder, breathes in, soaking in Brittany’s familiar scent.

“What are you doing here?” Brittany asks, pulling away just enough to be able to look her in the eye.

Santana grins, something that’s been rattling inside of her for months finally settling with the way Brittany stares at her, all wide blue eyes and wobbly smiles. She runs her hands up Brittany’s sides, forgetting herself for a moment, before she turns her head to cough.

She’s a little embarrassed now.

How is she supposed to explain that _Trouty Mouth_ of all people called her up because he was worried about Brittany? What kind of best friend needs someone else to tell them that their partner was hurting in some way?

(She scowls internally.

How was she supposed to know? Brittany hadn’t called.)

(She hadn’t either, a small part of her brain snarks back, and Santana has to shove that voice down, forcing it back into its box.)

“Regionals is this weekend,” Santana replies, shrugging a shoulder, keeping her tone casual. Brittany’s eyes flash, something sad, and put-out, and Santana hastens to add, “And I wanted to see you, of course.”

It coaxes that same small smile from before, the one that trembles at the corners, and oh, Santana knows something is wrong.

“Britt—”

Brittany slides her arms from around Santana’s shoulders, one hand latching around one of her wrists and tugging her into the house.

(The door misses her foot by an inch, crashing shut behind them.)

“Britt what are you—”

They’re stumbling up the stairs, tripping over themselves, and Santana tries not to think about the way this all feels so familiar. These hallways and stairs and the pictures hanging on the walls, and oh, the way Brittany’s hand is so warm around the skin of her wrist.

She kicks the corner of the door, sends it careening towards the wall before Brittany catches it absently, like it’s something that always happens — maybe it used to — but Santana is too distracted by how Brittany’s room hasn’t changed in the months she’s been away. The walls are the same soft shade, the collage of pictures of just the two of them still hanging where it’s always been. All smiles and crinkled eyes and cheeks and shoulders pressed together as they laughed.

(Her chest twists and aches and throbs with every heartbeat.)

Brittany turns on her camera, runs her hands through Lord Tubbington’s fur, and suddenly Santana is on _Fondue For Two_ being asked questions and giving answers that are completely unrelated to the reason why she came in the first place.

She stares across the way at Brittany, whose face is shuttered, expression impassive like this doesn’t matter, like she’s trying to hide from her. And it stings. It stings because oh, Brittany has never hidden from her like this before.

(Santana pretends that it has nothing to do with the distance that’s creeped between them, that stretches far enough that they can’t even sit next to each other.)

“Okay, Brittany, enough is enough _._ ”

And she shuts off the camera, insists that something is wrong because _there is_ , and Brittany looks at her with sad blue eyes and a furrowed brow, and Santana listens, listens, listens.

“I gained early admission to MIT.”

Her heart stops, her breath stuttering in her lungs, and oh oh _oh_.

“Brittany,” Santana breathes, the smile breaking across her face crinkling the corner of her eyes, and she’s certain that her dimples are showing. “Brittany that’s _amazing._ ”

Brittany looks down, shy, her ponytail slipping down her back as she bobs her head.

“It’s about time the world realized you’re a genius.”

Her eyes shine when she glances up again, and Santana smiles. She smiles like she hasn’t in the past months because oh, this feels right. Being here, sitting adjacent to Brittany and being so, so proud of her _feels_ _right._

(Did she have anyone who never doubted her? Did fucking Trouty Mouth finally get his shit together after the whole SAT disbelief and actually care about the things Brittany has accomplished?

Or has Brittany—)

(Has Brittany been alone too?)

“Thank you, Santana,” Brittany says, soft, and when she finally lifts her head, her gaze alighting upon Santana’s for what feels like the first time since she showed up on her doorstep, Santana remembers why she can never fall out of love with this girl. Not when she looks at her like that.

“Always,” Santana returns, just as soft. “You know that.”

And once upon a time, they would’ve leaned across the distance between their chairs and kissed, something slow, and languid, and adoring, but Santana just reaches her hand out, leaves it hanging in the air. Because they’re different now. They’re on separating paths, and oh, it’s taken her so much time enduring Berry and Hummel’s particular brand of friendship for her to accept that maybe that’s not a bad thing, but she can believe — if just a little — that maybe their roads will cross again in the future.

Brittany brushes her fingers with her own, slips them in the gaps between hers, and everything slots back into place.

Everything feels _right_.

(And maybe they do sneak in one kiss, one soft press of lips after Mr. Schue and Miss Pillsbury’s surprise wedding after the New Directions win Regionals.

But this time it doesn’t feel like a ‘goodbye.’

It doesn’t tingle with a finality they were never able to accomplish when it came to each other.

No, Brittany’s eyes are winter-soft, blue, blue, blue as she lugs her suitcase to the door.

_I’ll see you around, San._

Santana swallows, thick and helpless, but more hopeful this time around. Her smile is tremulous, and she can see the way Brittany wavers in the corner, too. But they can do this.

 _Yeah, Britt, see you around._ )

—

She becomes a singing waitress and she doesn’t exactly hate it.

Not even when Berry and Hummel crash the party because she was kind enough to help them get jobs at the Spotlight Diner.

(And no, it has nothing to do with the pretty blonde waitress who smiles at her, sparkling and bold and different than the way Brittany has ever looked at her.)

And okay, maybe Santana panics a little because this is the first time she’s ever experienced attraction outside of Brittany — and that weird redhead who grinned maniacally at her in the Louisville library (well maybe that wasn’t attraction) — and she’s _nervous_.

Santana Lopez does not do nervous.

But this girl, _Dani_ , has a guitar and watches the sunrise with her and kisses her featherlight on the lips, and Santana lets herself sink into the feeling because anything is better than that clawing, desperate ache in her chest that makes her long for Brittany even still.

(Brittany, who is out there somewhere in Massachusetts doing amazing things with that genius brain of hers.

Brittany, who she hasn’t called in weeks since she left for MIT, because she doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do now.)

Her foot catches on the door on the way out of the diner, and Santana’s breath stutters in her chest, something fluttering inside of her that feels a lot like hope. The glare of the morning sun burns her eyes, and she brings a hand up above her eyes, but oh, it’s beautiful.

New York is beautiful with its gleaming skyscrapers and bustling streets.

She inhales deeply.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

—

“You’re going back to Lima, right?”

And she doesn’t care that she’s begging. She doesn’t care that her voice is breaking on every syllable, or that her hands won’t stop shaking, or that her eyes are blurring with the tears streaming down her cheeks.

(She doesn’t think about the way Kurt stormed out of the loft without a world, quivering and pale.

Doesn’t think about the way she had to catch Rachel as she collapsed to her knees, screaming and gasping for tears as she sobbed. Doesn’t think about the way she had to hold them both as they cried, piled together on the couch in a makeshift family she hadn’t realized they were until that moment.)

“ _Yes – yes I am,”_ Brittany says on a stammer, breath just as ragged.

Santana presses the ridge of her palm to her eye, presses her phone more firmly against her ear, because Brittany breathing on the other line is the only thing keeping her from completely falling apart as bright spots start dotting her vision.

(She can’t imagine if – if it had been—)

“Can you—” Her voice wavers and cracks, and she has to suck in a breath, and another, and another before she can force the words out. “—Can you stay on the line with me?”

She curls in on herself, faces the back of the couch with a thin, tattered blanket tossed crookedly over her legs (she’s been too busy keeping Rachel and Kurt in one piece as the funeral date crept closer and closer, making sure they ate and slept).

Brittany sniffs, loud, and Santana wishes she could be there. Wishes they could span the distance between them and hold each other like they used to. Wipe the tears from each other’s cheeks and find comfort in that familiarity.

(She’s grateful that Dani keeps her distance.

That she was kind enough to help her book the tickets back to Lima for the three of them, to help her pack because her hands would tremble and tremble and tremble when she tried to fold clothing and stuff them into luggage.)

“ _Of course, San,_ ” Brittany whispers. “ _Of course._ ”

And they fall into a restless sleep, connected by the static of their phone call, trying to desperately cling to the comfort they find in each other.

(Santana wills herself not to dream about losing Brittany instead.)

—

They catch Quinn when she falls, flanking her and keeping her upright as she shakes with every heartbreaking sob.

—

She hated him.

She _hated him_.

He took away something that was supposed to be hers — took away something that she can never get back. Took away something that she was almost, _almost_ ready to give away herself.

He took that from her.

And she hates him for it.

But that doesn’t stop her from breaking down in the middle of her performance, choking and gasping on the words. The song fades away, the band stumbling to a stop, and oh, she’s screaming.

She’s screaming because Mr. Schue and Mike try to catch her, try to keep her from splitting right down the middle, but oh, only one person could ever hold her together. Only one person understands exactly what she’s feeling right now.

And she isn’t here.

(Brittany couldn’t make it to the memorial, and Santana tried not to let her disappointment show.

But Brittany saw right through her, cupped her cheeks in the cradle of her hands, and pressed their foreheads together.

_I’m sorry, but there’s a seminar and I can’t miss it._

And Santana understood, she did. Her lashes fluttered against Brittany’s cheeks and she tried not to cry.

 _It’s okay, Britt._ )

She runs out of the choir room, runs, and runs, and runs, but there’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere she can run where she won’t see him. His ghost forever haunts these old-new halls because he was everywhere with that dopey grin and flailing attempts to understand and care about everyone.

(And god she _hated him._

But she can’t stop crying.)

—

She trips on the stairs leading up to the stage, and she can’t help but breathe out a rattling laugh.

How fucking fitting.

—

Things manage to fall back into a state of normalcy.

They go back to New York, somber and hurting, but they keep moving. They keep trudging forward, one day at a time. And sometimes Santana still has to catch Rachel when she falls, when she finds her curled tight under her blankets, shaking. Sometimes she has to steady Kurt’s hands when he’s baking or cooking because he _remembers_.

There’s a shadow hanging over them, and Santana doesn’t think it’s ever going to leave.

—

She finds her distractions.

Dani is lovely and kind and full of things that don’t remind her of Brittany.

She’s all brown eyes and snarky replies. She’s sharp and witty and makes Santana panic-sweat sometimes.

But oh, Santana can’t help that she still dreams of Brittany. Dreams of golden-blonde hair and ocean blue eyes, and a touch that made her shiver, and flush, and smile all at once. She dreams, and dreams, and dreams (dreams of things she can’t have).

(Sometimes, she wonders if Brittany still dreams of her too.)

—

Rachel gets her Broadway role, Kurt kills it in his NYADA classes, and Santana, well, she—

She dreams of singing, of performing, of _shining_.

But she doesn’t know how to get there.

—

Kurt starts a band.

Dani and Elliot climb aboard.

(Santana hesitates.)

She can sing again. She can—

There’s a buzzing in her ears, tingles shooting through her fingers, her legs, down to her toes. Her breath catches, and oh, she can _perform_ again. She can clutch a microphone in her hand and let her voice wrap around the words that drum and drum and drum in the back of her head.

(She can _sing_.)

Dani catches her eye as they deliberate over a name for their group, and Santana smiles.

(Flickers of memories flash behind her eyes.

Sophomore year, throwing arms in the air, the exhilaration of winning Sectionals together, hands reaching, reaching, reaching. Brittany’s eyes so blue and so bright beneath the stage lights. All of them crowding in the hospital waiting room after Regionals, waiting with bated breath as Quinn brings life into the world.

Junior year, pinkies linked and dancing down the hallway, spinning and laughing, laughing, laughing. The blur of Sectionals, of _Valerie,_ of singing her heart out while Brittany and Mike whirled and spun and threw themselves into the choreography — the nervousness of the night before while she and Brittany skidded across wooden floorboards as they practiced in the light of the refrigerator door.

Senior year and the Trouble Tones and winning Nationals.)

It’s not the same. It’s not the people she grew up with, the people she came to care for as a family of her own — the people who gave her a space to be herself.

And maybe Dani and Elliot aren’t the glee club, and maybe Hummel is as annoying as ever as he shoots down every name suggestion, and Berry’s head somehow grows larger and larger the more practices she attends for _Funny Girl_ , but it’s something.

It’s a start. And Santana thinks she can finally breathe again.

(The stage is just the four of them — not twelve, not twelve people aiming for something no one thought they could achieve but they did it anyway because it was for _them_ — and oh, Santana thinks she sees glimpses of blonde hair everywhere, of sparkling blue eyes.)

(Because oh, performing always reminds her of Brittany, but Brittany isn’t here.)

—

It starts breaking apart, unraveling at the seams.

Santana’s never been good at fixing things, and the strands slip through her fingertips faster than she can catch them.

Rachel stalks in front of her, screaming and raging, and Santana tries not to feel any of it. Tries to keep herself from tipping over that edge into the darkness below — into that familiar comfort of anger and disdain and _pain_ because oh, Rachel is making her out to be some sort of villain for auditioning.

(All she wanted was to — was to remember what it felt like to be on that stage, to perform for an audience that would be receptive of the way her voice rasps over the notes, melds the words into a haunting, soulful call.

Kurt’s band wasn’t enough.)

(She trips over the edge of the door, eyes blurring with frustrated tears, and oh, how could it have ever been enough when Dani and Elliot aren’t _them_. Aren’t the people who started from the beginning in that choir room together.)

(The shadow that hangs over them inches closer, and she can’t breathe.)

Rachel tears a picture of them in two.

It was never a friendship. The months they spent together, Santana carrying her through the Brody the Gigolo mess, the pregnancy scare, the way she wouldn’t let either her or Kurt fall into the deep end after Finn—

She turns nasty.

She lets those thoughts she believed she left behind expel from her lungs, claw up her throat, scratching the roof of her mouth, and she spits them out like poison. Like that’s all she has left.

The corners of her vision are going dark, and everything is slipping away from her, and Santana’s screaming, but no one hears her. No one hears past the venom on her tongue and the storm in her eyes.

Rachel won’t talk to her at rehearsals.

Rachel leaves the loft.

(And it’s always about Rachel, isn’t it?

About her dreams and her accomplishments, and Santana flounders for something to call her own.)

Kurt kicks them both off the band.

Kurt kicks them both off the band, and _Dani_ agrees with it.

Betrayal burns into her veins, and Santana recoils. Feels her breath stutter in her lungs, and the anger dissipates. The vitriol and the vicious urge to throw back every biting remark Rachel lets loose on her into her face.

Her shoulders slump.

—

Her thoughts stray to Los Angeles, to New Haven, to—

To Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She scrolls through the contacts on her phone, hovers over each individual name.

Mercedes Jones. Quinn Fabray. _Brittany Pierce_.

She could call them, she could call them and ask. Ask for anything to distract her from the fact that New York isn’t what she imagined it would be. That she tripped into New York pretending that it was everything she ever wanted, but it’s cold, and lonely, and empty.

And she doesn’t have any dreams here.

She can’t find them.

(The phone slips from her fingers and onto the ground, and Santana wishes more than anything that she could go back and fix what she broke in the first place.)

—

“You could always apologize.”

She hums, noncommittal. Trust Hummel to always take Berry’s side. It’s always been them against her from the second she stepped foot through the door. She never expected anything less.

(He glared at her when Berry left.

He glared at her down the ridge of his nose, something pitying and contemptuous wrapped into one. And Santana spared a thought to wonder how she never noticed how similar they were until that moment.

The same survival instinct, the same judgmental view of the world that wants nothing more than to tear them to the ground.

She glared back, unimpressed, arms crossed.)

(It wasn’t personal, no matter what Berry wants to believe.

She just wanted—)

“Santana, seriously, this is getting ridiculous.” Hummel sets his plate of food down on the table, something vegetable-heavy and gross. Santana stares more determinedly at her phone, wondering if she should call. “You guys have been feuding for weeks over something so – so frivolous.”

He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t _understand_.

She didn’t think he would, not even when he put his face in his hands, annoyed by hers and Berry’s constant going at each other.

She scoffs but offers nothing more.

His fork scrapes against the porcelain of his plate.

They sit in silence.

Santana hears static in her ears.

(She doesn’t call.)

—

She breaks up with Dani, hands twisting and twisting around each other, rubbing the skin raw.

Dani doesn’t understand either. Dani with her furrowed brows and parted lips and blue-dyed hair that used to be blonde. That used to be—

Dani _doesn’t understand_.

But Santana doesn’t either. Doesn’t understand that strange, burning betrayal that’s seeped into her veins.

(She thought Dani would have her back like she had all of theirs when Finn—

But she hadn’t. And it hurts more than Santana expected it to.)

“I’m so sorry,” she whispers, broken and sad and so, so angry with herself.

Because this girl is amazing. This girl has a wickedly sharp sense of humor, a wit that can match her own, an awe-inspiring voice that makes her tremble to her core. And aside from the drama of their hardly successful band, this girl could have been everything for her.

But she’s still seeing golden blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes whenever she turns her head a certain way, every time she wakes up on that couch in the loft, disoriented and still half-asleep.

Dani deflates and shakes her head, voice bitter and cracking. “You were never over her, were you? The person you talked about when I first asked you out.”

Santana’s eyes sting, and she can’t look at her. The silence is telling.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Dani pivots on her heel, marches toward the backroom to sign in for her shift without a single backwards glance, and Santana can’t even blame her.

She heads to the front of the diner, almost misses the way the door catches on her foot when she exits, almost misses how the door crashes shut behind her, shaking with a finality she feels deep in her bones.

She tilts her head back, watches the sky darken into dusty blues and violets.

Her phone is heavy in her pocket, a weighty reminder. She wonders what Brittany’s up to.

—

It takes glee club getting canceled for all of them to drop what they’re doing and head back to Lima, fucking Ohio.

It takes glee club getting canceled and her sitting next to Brittany in the back row of the choir room like they’re back in high school and nothing has changed, for her to breathe, and breathe, and breathe. Because oh, this is what she’s been missing.

This is what fell from her hands to begin with.

And it’s glee club all over again.

Berry and Mercedes battling for the spotlight (Santana knows who she wants to win; she may have already pre-purchased Mercedes’ album on her iTunes) with Kurt attempting to make himself heard.

Santana and Berry are exchanging barbed remarks whenever they so much as _look_ at each other.

And Quinn — well, Santana can’t really tell what the hell is going on with Quinn other than the fact that she’s allowing another trashy man to call all the shots in her life.

If she wasn’t so caught up in the rush of having Brittany near again, in the corner that’s making her lips purse and her brow furrow because Brittany is acting _different_ again, then she would’ve confronted Quinn about it. They probably would have resorted to slapping each other again — they’ve only ever been good making sure the other knows they care by yelling — but Santana’s busy.

She finds Brittany in one of the empty classrooms, twirling a piece of chalk between her fingers as she gnaws on her lip.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Brittany looks up, still hunched over, and there’s a dullness to her blue eyes that wasn’t there the last time they saw one another.

She blinks. “Have you?”

Santana eyes the equation on the board, unable to make heads or tails of the symbols scattered in colorful chalk. Her heart swells at the reminder that the rest of the world knows Brittany’s a genius now too.

“What are you doing?” She asks, dodging the question. Of course she was looking for her.

“Trying to solve the Riemann Hypothesis.”

Santana doesn’t even bother pretending she knows what that is and sits herself down on one of the desks, her shoulders slumping in dismay.

This isn’t Brittany.

This isn’t her best friend she’s known since they were kids in the sandbox and Noah Puckerman kicked over Brittany’s sandcastle, so Santana pushed him face-first into the dirt. This isn’t her, and Santana’s mind works desperately to find a way to remind her of who she is deep down inside. Because oh, it’s her turn to help Brittany match her outsides to how awesome she is inside.

—

She’s breathing hard, feeling confident that her plan had worked.

The three of them knocked that performance out of the fucking part, but oh, Quinn makes a quick excuse for her douchey looking boyfriend, smiles awkward and strained, and Brittany’s rattling off things that don’t make sense.

And Santana tries not to feel like she’s falling again.

Everything is spiraling out of control, like she’s tripped and she’s been falling ever since.

She watches as everyone files out of the choir room, Quinn arm-in-arm with her pretentious boy toy and Brittany with her hands running through her hair, determined that dancing isn’t what comes naturally to her anymore.

It’s like she’s forgotten how her body used to move to any beat, natural, like she had a rhythm running through her at all times.

So Santana plans and schemes, and when the choir room door nearly catches her as it swings backward to shut, she darts out of the way.

—

New York was a bust, and Berry and Kurt still watch her with wary eyes, but Santana doesn’t care.

Santana doesn’t care because she’s enlisted Boy-Chang in her plans and she’s belting out the familiar words to Amy Winehouse, and she feels at home in her skin for the first time since she graduated.

She’s spinning and dancing and laughing, and she can tell that Brittany’s struggling to fight the urge to join her.

Santana crooks her fingers, beckons her forward, and Quinn is prodding Brittany’s shoulders, trying to force her out of her chair.

Mike twirls her around, and Santana can’t stop smiling.

Can’t stop giggling and cheering when Brittany finally relents, shrugging out of her jacket and moving her body to the beat of the song.

Their voices are harmonizing and they fall into step like they never left.

Their hands touch and their smiles match, and it feels like everything is finally righting itself.

There’s a gleam in Brittany’s eyes, a sweat coating her forehead, her cheeks flushed, and Santana doesn’t think she’s ever looked more like herself. She’s grinning, wild and unabashed, and she’s singing to her, and Santana’s singing back.

And it’s everything, everything, everything.

—

Brittany kisses her.

Brittany kisses her, and Santana falls into it. The pressure of Brittany’s mouth against hers, the softness and the warmth that she could never have forgotten for how often she’s dreamt of having this opportunity again.

( _I’ve seen the world and I’m sure now, more than ever, that I belong with you._ )

Santana’s breath hitches.

(And she hesitates.)

—

The thing about dreams is that they always fall through for her.

And having Brittany here, having Brittany here _wanting_ to get back together, admitting that she’s still in love with her, makes her head spin, her thoughts swirling at dizzying speeds because oh, after all her time in New York, Santana can scarcely believe this is happening.

Brittany, with her earnest blue eyes and probing gaze.

Brittany with her endless patience and soft lips pressing a gentle kiss to her cheek.

Brittany, Brittany, Brittany.

—

Santana trips over the threshold and stumbles into the choir room, but oh, this time she doesn’t have to pretend.

Not with Brittany there, filling the room with lilies, _the lesbian of flowers_. Not with the way she slots so perfectly against Brittany’s side, their bodies still so worn into each other even after all this time.

And oh, dreams have never worked out for her, and she’s still terrified that this won’t. That she’ll somehow ruin what she and Brittany have _again_. She already has a history of doing it, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise if she does.

But Brittany is warm and steady at her side, and it’s hard to imagine that anything can break them apart this time.

( _I want you to come to New York with me_ , she’ll ask later, when Brittany’s standing in the bathroom adjusting her cap and gown, hopeful, hopeful, hopeful.

Because Brittany makes her hope.

Brittany makes her dream.)

(And oh, this time, Santana has a feeling they’ll make it with the way Brittany smiles at her then, bashful and shy and adoring, and everything Santana has been missing.)

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this back during nanowrimo and finally got around to posting it.  
> thanks for reading!
> 
> title from: windswept by crywolf
> 
> catch me on tumblr @fulmentus if you wanna chat


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